1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing system, and an image processing method, for causing positions of anomalous pixels occurring on an image captured by the imaging apparatus to be displayed, and a computer program for executing the image processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image acquired by an imaging apparatus is composed of a plurality of pixels and the image is formed such that the color and density of the image are expressed as a whole by the plurality of pixels. The plurality of pixels may include pixels which are referred to as anomalous pixels. Examples of the anomalous pixel include a defective pixel and a pixel indicating an abnormal value or defective value. The defective pixel indicates an output outside an output range that is preliminary set to a predetermined input due to an abnormality of a circuit or an element in the imaging apparatus.
Since the anomalous pixels adversely affect a quality of the captured image, the anomalous pixels can be corrected according to a method to replace the anomalous pixels by using an average pixel value calculated based on values of the neighboring pixels. Accordingly, an image is provided to a user after the anomalous pixels of the image are corrected. Further, since the anomalous pixels are extracted as the abnormal value in the image, positions of the anomalous pixels change depending on an image capturing method. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-101925 discusses a technique for correcting the positions of the anomalous pixels which change according to a shutter speed in view of the above described point.
On the other hand, for example, in the medical field, the positions where there were the anomalous pixels need to be confirmed, in order to check if the anomalous pixels are properly changed or not.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-8928 discusses such a technique that displays positions of the anomalous pixels which are within a region selected by a user in a radiation image.
There is a situation that an object image is captured using a plurality of image capturing methods sequentially. More specifically, for example, the user captures a high-definition still image of a moving object at an appropriate position and an appropriate timing while observing the object in capturing a moving image of the object. At that time, there is such a demand that a position of the imaging apparatus is adjusted such that the anomalous pixels are not included within the region of the focusing object upon capturing a still image of the object. However, the above-mentioned document has no description about how to display the anomalous pixels of which positions change depending on the image capturing method. Therefore, the above-described demand may not be resolved.